So we’ve connected with our child — now what?
No-Drama Mama Part Three
Redirect
Consider the following options for redirection, once your child’s “lizard brain” has been soothed:
- Offer your child a chance to have a “do-over.”
- Use “when, then” statements: “When you finish your vegetables, we can start the movie!”
- Questions to prompt helpful inquiry:
- “What’s going on here?”
- “Can you help me understand this?”
- “I can’t figure this out — can you help me?”
- Phrase requests in the positive: “I like your normal voice. Can you ask me in your regular voice?”
- Use humor. Be playful and creative.
- Ask your child, “What do you need?”
- Instead of giving a no, give a conditional yes: “No, you can’t eat ice cream right now, but tomorrow after the game we can stop and get some”; “We don’t have time to get out the playdough right now, but after naptime we will.”
- Involve your child in determining consequences, or how a situation should be remedied.
- Make observations (“I see a lot of clothes on the floor in your room”) as opposed to demands or judgments (“Go clean your room right now!”; “You’re so messy!”)
Remember, our goal is to be consistent, but not rigid. We want to do the best we can, recognizing that perfection is not possible! We create space so that we can respond to THIS behavior from THIS child in THIS moment.
A few more thoughts on discipline…
Dan Siegel says that many forms of “misbehavior” are more about “can’t” than “won’t.” It’s helpful to pause and consider if what we are asking of our children is age-appropriate and reasonable.
When a child misbehaves, HALT — “Is my child hungry, angry, lonely, or tired?”
Consequences, when possible, should be logical and connected to the behavior. For example, a child who forgets to put the iPad away where it’s protected might lose iPad time for a day. Sometimes, the “natural consequences” are all a child needs — not doing homework means they lose out on “Fun Friday” at school, or being mean to a sibling means the sibling doesn’t play with them (by choice) for the rest of the day.
Before engaging in redirection and conversation, make sure 1) your child is ready, and 2) YOU are ready. Is your upstairs brain online? Not only do we not want to “poke the lizard,” we don’t want to parent as the lizard!
Helpful Resources
You can find several parenting videos from Dan Siegel here.
You can read an article about using “connect before redirect” here — it’s a classroom example, but very helpful!